Back to Work
by EchoBravoTango
Summary: POST DEATHLY HALLOWS AKA SPOILERS George always loved openning up the store in the morning. Back at WWW after Fred dies, George reflects on being alone. NOT SLASH Please read and review!


Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.

_Hi guys,_

_I couldn't sleep, so I got thinking about Deathly Hallows and all that had happened. Being a twin myself, Fred's death hit me the hardest. Oddly, I feel so much more for George than I do for Fred. Having to live without my twin would be agnoy. So here's my take on George after Fred dies. _

_Now I have to sleep! Please Review!_

_Cat_

**Back to Work**

Diagon Alley was a very different place before sunrise than it became later in the day. While at noon the stores burst with shoppers with armloads of candy and spell books and owl treats and (yes) magical jokes, in the early morning there was nobody on the street. The lamps spaced between every store glowed softly, barely managing to penetrate the darkness of the night and the awnings of the cafes fluttered expectantly. The only signs of the life that the street would so soon be bursting with were the owls and rats displayed in the windows of Eeylops Owl Emporium and the Magical Menagerie. Occasionally a shop owner would appear with a vague pop and trudge his way up to his door, unlock the door sleepily and flick on the lights.

George had never been one of the sleepy men and women who so despised coming to work. Even when he and Fred had still been living at the Burrow, he had been glad to Apparate there early and open up shop. George was the morning twin, while Fred didn't really come alive until he had had his breakfast and, as they got older, his coffee.

George didn't drink coffee. It was one of those things that, if people knew, they could have used to tell them apart. As it was, only Verity, their then-new assistant, had ever figured that one out. One day she had arrived early and so was there when they walked in, Fred with his coffee mug in hand.

"Hello Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley," she had said courteously.

"Verity, how many times have we told you to call us Fred and George?" George had said, hanging his cloak on the door behind the counter.

"She probably can't tell us apart," Fred had said, giving Verity his dazzling smile that he always used to charm girls. As hard as he tried, George never managed to find the same easy grin that Fred's face, identical to his own, pulled off so easily.

"Of course I can," Verity had replied, smiling slightly. "You," she said, pointing at Fred, "are Fred and you are George."

She had refused to tell them how she had figured it out until Fred was ready to put it down to a lucky guess. Finally, she had confessed that the coffee was the giveaway. Of course, that left anytime Fred wasn't holding coffee where she couldn't figure it out. She continued to call them "Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley" for continuity's sake.

When they had moved into the condo above the shop in the middle of the summer after their unfinished seventh year, George had been even happier to open up shop and let his groggy brother take the forty minute shower he apparently needed to function in the morning. Nearly everyday he would wake up early, quietly slip into his violently coloured work robes and sneak downstairs.

He would flick on the lights of the shop, nearly always the first to be lit, and the warm yellow light would spill into the street. He would stick his head out the door and check to see if Eddie, the guy who worked the _Daily_ _Prophet_ stand two shops down, was there yet. Eddie was the only one who routinely beat him to work.

If he was there, George would make a dash down the road, often without bothering to put his shoes on, and grab the first _Prophet_ off the pile. Dashing back up the street, paper in hand, he would spell the bell on the door silent so that he didn't wake Fred and then sneak back into the store. This down, he would usually still have about an hour before Verity showed up. He would sit at the chair behind the counter and laugh at the rubbish the Prophet was printing, watching the sun rise slowly and the bright square of light on the cobblestones outside the fade until it was gone and the sun was up.

George had grown to love these mornings. They were the moments that he was alone, one person separate from everyone else. Eddie always knew which twin he was greeting. And yet, there was a deep comfort in knowing that his twin was still nearby, still within his reach. He felt a little rush of fondness each morning as he heard the unmistakable sound of Fred's feet slamming onto the floor and trampling to the bathroom. He could picture his twin's face, his own face, screwed up in drowsy concentration as Fred tried to figure out which toothbrush was his. They had the exact same one.

When they were young, they had done anything they could to be as identical as possible. George had once heard that identical twins either decide to be exactly the same or as different as possible as they struggle to define themselves. He and Fred were certainly the former. If they could act the same, they would. George could remember one time where their mother had gone berserk one day and stitched an F or a G onto every single shirt and pair of pants that the twins owned so that she would be able to tell them apart.

They had spent an entire week in their underwear.

For their part, at least Charlie and Bill thought it was funny. As older brothers, they would often indulge the twins' requests to try and guess who was who, laughing graciously when they got it wrong. They always got it wrong. Even when they got it right, Fred and George would lie and say they were each other.

Why not? The way George saw it, their mother had probably mixed them up so much as babies that it was entirely possible that he actually had been born Fred. From birth they had been so close that George himself could sometimes fail to see how they were, in fact, different.

Except about the coffee.

It had come as something of a shock when he had lost his ear. Waking on that couch, feeling his head, his stomach had plummeted. He had been horrified, devastated even, and not because he had lost an ear. Because he had become unique.

George didn't really know how to be unique. They could no longer confuse anybody as to who they were. It was not just Eddie and Verity that could tell them apart now. Their parents, their customers, even Ron, who had never before guessed correctly who was who, bandied about their individual names as if they were household spells. Each time that somebody correctly and easily identified him as George, George felt a little piece of his brother leave him. "Fred…or George…no, Fred" no longer existed. Fred and George. Gred and Forge. The identical twins. Gone.

Fred had felt it too. They had started wearing hats that came low over their ears. With them on they were identical again. Berets had become their favorite before they were forced to go into hiding.

Those last few months with Fred had been both the happiest and scariest of George's life. They had driven their Auntie Muriel completely bonkers with their mail order service operating out of her sitting room. There had been a memorable time where a Portable Swamp had accidentally deployed, turning most of the ground floor carpeting into a bog. Floating happily on the couch, Fred and George had rather enjoyed watching Muriel shake her fist and vow to whip them to death from the island of tile that the kitchen had become.

At the same time, there was the constant fear that Voldemort was _out there_ and that he might somehow find them _in here_. When they had been summoned to the Battle of Hogwarts, fear and excitement had boiled equally in George's veins. How strongly, how often now, he wished that they had stayed at home.

When Percy had returned, it had blown all of these emotions out of his mind, leaving room only for amazement and shock. Elated to finally have the family back together, the elder brothers had climbed as one up the stairs. Almost immediately Charlie, Bill, and Percy had rushed off leftwards to aid a struggling Professor Flitwick with Charming some statues. Charms not being their strong suit, the twins had bid their brothers a quick goodbye.

"Be careful!" Charlie had called over his shoulder, his anxiety at letting his kid brothers out of sight barely concealed. George had been forcefully reminded of their who's who games from when they were young then; in his absence he had almost forgotten how much Charlie loved them.

Running into a fork in the hallway, Fred had made to go left and George had made to go right. They had both stopped, looking at the other confused.

"Angelina's down that way," Fred had said and George had caught a glimpse of the girl Fred had pined after for so long dancing around curses at the end of the hall.

"I told Lee I'd meet him on the fourth floor," George had said, indicating the stairs behind him.

They had stared at each other until there had been a loud bang on the floor below.

"I've got to go," they had said at the same time. Fred had smiled and turned to do just that.

George had caught his robes. A surge of protectiveness and platonic love of a strength that only a twin could possibly understand filled him. "Fred," he had said, slightly embarrassed, "be safe OK?"

Fred had laughed slightly, "You'd think I was hot-headed or impulsive, the way you talk Georgie." Only Fred still called him that and got away with it.

George had stared him down, flushing slightly but refusing to smile. "In case I don't get to tell you later, I love you Fred," he had said seriously.

Fred had considered him, now serious for once. "I love you too Georgie," Fred had said. Then Angelina had screamed and Fred had whipped around and dashed down the hall.

George had stared until his twin's back had disappeared around the corner, feeling like throwing up from the turmoil of emotions rushing through him. It was the last time he ever saw Fred alive.

It had been surreal to walk into the Great Hall and see his body lying amongst the other dead. For a moment George was sure it was himself he was looking at, for Fred couldn't be dead. In a way, he had been right.

He had fallen to his knees, the pain of it shocking him, and he had realized that he was still alive. That is must be Fred that had died. He did not remember approaching his brother, but suddenly he had been there, kneeling at his head. He had smoothed his twin's hair away from his face, revealing a dark cut at Fred's hairline. He ran his hands over two whole, perfect ears, half expecting Fred to laugh and jump up; he had always been ticklish behind his ears.

The world ceased to exist. There was only him and Fred. Their identical faces both contorted: one in a smile and one in a tear-streaked grimace. He did not remember when his parents had arrived, or his other siblings. He did not remember when Harry Potter had died, come back to life or defeated Voldemort. He knew he had fought in body, but his mind had remained crouched at Fred's head, his peaceful face forever etched on George's eyelids.

He had gone home to the Burrow, refusing to let anybody but himself carry Fred. Anything to postpone the moment when they would be parted forever. When they had finally taken the body from him, George had walked around the house and covered every mirror up. Each time he saw himself his heart would leap and then crash, thinking for a moment he had seen his twin alive and well.

This morning, he had Apparated to work. Most of the shops in Diagon Alley remained closed, but George could no longer stand to remain at the Burrow and suffer the pitying gazes of his family. He knew that when they looked at him they thought only of Fred. So he had called Verity who, thank god, had survived the war unhurt.

Sitting behind the counter, he stared out at the street. The _Prophet,_ delivered to the Burrow that morning, lay unopened and disregarded in front of him as he gazed emptily out at the slowly lightening store fronts. The shower was silent above him and the coffeemaker sat untouched with a visible layer of dust coating it.

There was a loud jingle as the bell that George had not bothered to silence rang loudly and Verity opened the door.

"Hello George," she said kindly.

George nodded, putting his head in his hands. She knew who he was. Of course she did. Who alive could she have mistaken him for?


End file.
